‘Affluenza’ Teen Ethan Couch Tentatively Sentenced to 2 Years in Fatal Drunken Driving Crash
A Texas judge ordered Wednesday that “affluenza” teen Ethan Couch spend 720 days in jail — nearly two years — as a condition for his continued probation for a 2013 fatal drunken-driving crash.
The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office released a booking photo of Ethan Couch after his transfer from a juvenile facility to the Lon Evans Corrections Center, an adult facility in Fort Worth, in February 2016.
However, the judge said he’d give the defense two weeks to make an argument against the order.
“Nothing is set in stone, so I might reconsider,” the judge said in a court hearing in the case in Tarrant County, Texas.
[Original story, published at 9:02 a.m. PT]
Ethan Couch, a Texas teenager accused of fleeing to Mexico after using an “affluenza” defense to avoid prison in a fatal drunken-driving crash, will remain in jail for an undetermined number of days while a judge awaits recommendations from prosecutors and defense attorneys, the judge said during a court hearing Wednesday.
The judge eventually will determine how many further days Couch will have to serve in jail as a long-anticipated condition of his probation upon turning 19.